Mental Health, Wellbeing and You - A South Tees View

Healthwatch South Tees (HWST), worked in partnership with the Tees Valley Healthwatch Network to create a survey to ascertain local views of accessing mental health and well-being services. They wanted to gain a deeper understanding of what people’s experiences have been, including what has worked well and what hasn’t, to identify what potential changes could make a real difference to people across their local authority areas in order to influence the Tees, Esk and Wear Valley NHS Foundation Trust (TEWV) Community Transformation Programme and inform the work of the Tees Valley Mental Health Alliance.

The aim of TEWV is to deliver a new mental health community-based offer by the:

• Redesign and reorganisation of core community mental health teams which are placed based. (Sound clinical governance is critical to successful implementation.)
• Creation of a core mental health service which is aligned with primary care networks, voluntary sector organisations and local community groups whereby dedicated services and functions will plug in.

The Tees Valley Healthwatch Network engaged over 900 people, including seldom heard groups, who all have a vested interest in an effective mental health offer of support.